Billy Rose's Aquacade

Billy Rose's Aquacade was a music, dance and swimming show produced by Billy Rose at the Great Lakes Exposition in 1937.

Later Aquacade moved to the 1939 New York World's Fair where it was the most successful production of the fair (Lowe). The Art Deco 11,000 seat amphitheatre at the north end of Meadow Lake was designed by architects Sloan & Robertson. Shows were staged by John Murray Anderson to the orchestrations of Ted Royal. The pool and the 300 by 200-foot (61 m) stage could be hidden behind a lighted 40-foot (12 m) high curtain of water.

The inaugural Aquacade starred Olympians Eleanor Holm, Johnny Weissmuller (later replaced by Buster Crabbe) and newcomer Esther Williams. Rose married Holm after divorcing his first wife, comedian Fanny Brice.

Duke Ellington played in a 1955 edition for several weeks.

For the New York Aquacade, Rose interviewed 5,000 applicants and chose 500 dancers, actors and swimmers. Gertrude Ederle, a Flushing, Queens resident and the first woman to swim the English Channel, was an Aquacade star. Queens Borough President Donald R. Manes dedicated the pool to her in 1978.

In 1940, Aquacade also opened in San Francisco at the Golden Gate International Exposition.

The New York State Marine Amphitheatre was torn down in 1996 because of local opposition to renovating the asbestos-contaminated structure as a concert venue.

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